


The Flame Still Burns

by elfin



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-15 06:20:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18068198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfin/pseuds/elfin
Summary: Throughout history, they've just been drawing closer.





	The Flame Still Burns

A very, very long time ago. The angel Aziraphale is sitting on a wall in a beautiful garden, admiring the colour and the scent of the flowers, and minding his own business, when a snake with golden scales slithers over the stone to curl up beside him. 

He regards the snake curiously, but not suspiciously, for a while, and the snake regards him right back, until the two of them reach a silent, tacit agreement not to mess with each other’s day. After that they sit together until the air cools and the flowers wilt, then they go their separate ways.

~

Centuries later, a different garden, the grass red with blood. The human corpses lie like a felled forest all around him and Aziraphale can’t yet find the strength or the will to stand. He sits in the midst of the slaughter, the aftermath of the war, alone with his despair until he hears a familiar hiss. He reaches out, his arm straight, fingers wriggling in invitation. Crawly seems to consider it carefully before slithering over the back of the angel’s hand and winding his way up his arm in a slow, languorous spiral, coiling but not squeezing, until his head rests on Aziraphale’s shoulder and he settles there until the sun sets and the soil soaks up the blood.

~

After the non-event that was supposed to be the end of the world but wasn’t, everyone slopes off with the uncertain, embarrassed air of a job well and truly fucked up. Aziraphale suggests a drink. He means in a restaurant, or failing that (they are out in the country after all) a local pub. But Crowley takes the suggestion at face value, and produces a bottle and two glasses before the angel can say ‘a good Bordeaux’. He conjures up a couple of deckchairs and they sit in the sunshine on the weed-strewn runway to appreciate… well, everything. 

At one stage, Aziraphale reaches between them, wriggling his fingers in mid-air. Crowley looks over with a smile and closes the gap, taking the angel’s hand in his own and simply holding it until they hear the approach of the delivery van returning to collect the items of the horsemen.

~

A few years later, a heatwave settles over the city like a heavy blanket. Londoners take to lying around on any unoccupied patch of grass, reading books and listening to music through little earbuds. Aziraphale suggests a picnic in Hyde Park, and Crowley thinks it sounds like one idea to pass another day. They choose a nice spot under a tree by the lake, a spot remarkably free from smooching couples, snogging teenagers or screaming children. Even the ducks seem reluctant to leave the relative cool of the water. 

Aziraphale has recently discovered a fabulous new deli in Soho, and the picnic is more like a six course taster menu at a Michelin starred restaurant. They start with quails eggs, cooked just right, and end with a gooey chocolate thing Crowley gets all over his face and licks off with childish delight. 

There was a bottle of champagne in the cooler, and a bottle of exquisite Sauvignon Blanc. A glass of the wine hangs from Crowley’s fingers now, as he lies on the picnic blanket the angel thought to bring (grass stains are hell on white clothing). Aziraphale finishes the remainder of his own wine before settling at right angles to the demon, unashamedly using him as a pillow, head in the hollow between his right hip and the dip of his waist. 

No one bothers them as they lie there. There’s a circle of empty grass surrounding them, the only patch free in London today, but people just aren’t seeing it as they hunt for a space to lounge. 

Crowley lets his hand settle on Aziraphale’s shoulder and rests there for a time before starting a lazy exploration down his arm. The crisp cotton of his shirt feels blissfully cool. The heatwave reminds Crowley uncomfortably of home. He’s spent a good deal of the last few days in snake form inside his own fridge freezer, although he doesn’t mind being out in the sun if it means being with the angel. The bookshop, as fond of it as he is, feels like a sweatshop in the heat, with its lack of air conditioning. 

His fingers reach Aziraphale’s elbow. The angel has his hands rested on his stomach and Crowley can’t reach any further without moving. He’s about to make the return journey back to the shoulder, when Aziraphale lifts his hand into the air and Crowley can continue walking his fingers upwards. He steps cautiously over folded material before touching softly haired skin, and realises with a start that the angel has his sleeves rolled up. He can’t recall ever seeing him do anything that casual. He’s practically half naked without his shirtsleeves down to his wrists. 

This is new territory, and Crowley slows his progress, teasing at individual hairs with his nails, brushing them flat with gentle strokes. When he reaches the base of Aziraphale’s hand, he slides around to the inside of his wrist and settles for a minute or two over the pulse point. These bodies are human, it’s the angelic grace that keeps at bay the ailments that are the bane of the human condition; illness, injury, age. Death would still be a problem, if he had any interest in them. Which he didn’t. 

Aziraphale’s pulse is strangely fast.

Crowley moves his hand up, palm against palm, and threads his fingers in between the angel’s fingers, folding them so that they’re holding hands. He hears Aziraphale hum, a soft, happy sound which makes him smile. He closes his eyes behind the shade of his glasses and just focuses on the heat of their hands, hotter than the sun shining down on them. 

~

Time moves differently for them. Aziraphale can spend weeks reading without the need to eat, drink or sleep. The sun will rise and set, again and again, and when he’s finished the entire series of some great work, he’ll sit back in his chair and stretch and wonder what to have for supper. 

Crowley likes sleeping. While Aziraphale reads, he’ll curl up somewhere, close his eyes (if he’s in human form) and the next thing he knows, he’s being woken by the telephone ringing and the angel asking him if he fancies a spot of lunch. 

On the day, coincidentally, of Adam Young’s eighteenth birthday, they meet for breakfast in the Garden Cafe, then take a stroll around the lake. Aziraphale’s brought a bag of barley and oats, because it’s thought now that bread isn’t good for ducks, and they feed the demanding creatures that waddle up to them, heading further into the park once the bag is empty.

As they walk, the conversation shifts easily from the latest popular play to hit the West End, to the new gadget Crowley has ordered from Amazon that he doesn’t know what to do with, to the Booker Prize, and a rare first edition that Aziraphale has found hidden behind some stacks he’s sure weren’t always there. As they walk, Aziraphale slips his hand easily into Crowley’s and neither of them miss a step, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

After a couple of hours, they take a break on a bench overlooking an area that’s been left to the wild, something about attracting the insects, in particular the bees. Crowley doesn’t mind bees, but there are wasps too. He isn’t sure the big man invented wasps. He thinks maybe it was a petty revenge move by Lucifer after the fall; vicious, single-minded bastards that they are. He mentions his theory to Aziraphale who shrugs, suggesting he might be right. He clearly has something else on his mind.

They’re still holding hands.

‘Do you think Crowley,’ Aziraphale starts, ‘that maybe it just might be time to take this thing between us a little further? I mean, it has been six thousand years, give or take, since we first met, and we keep holding hands but that’s all we do. Which, don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t give up for the world. Because I like it, a lot, when you touch me. And I honestly wouldn’t mind if you touched me more, maybe differently, more intimately.’

‘Stop.’ Crowley laughs. He can’t help himself. He turns and pushs his glasses up into his hair. ‘You only had to ask, angel.’

~

Crowley looks up at Aziraphale with something dangerously close to reverence. There’s a part of him demanding release after the hours of exquisite torture, and his grip on it is slipping, but he doesn’t want there to be an end to this. He doesn’t want to be physically parted from his angel, and he’s certain Aziraphale feels the same way, because his earlier frantic movements have slowed to barely anything, his hands are flat on Crowley’s chest, and he’s breathing slowly, so very slowly.

On one such breath, he says, ’I love you,’ which makes something unfurl inside the demonic, once angelic, heart. 

Crowley can’t say it back, but he makes sure when he looks at Aziraphale, it’s there, clear, in his eyes. He strokes languidly over trembling thighs, fingers splayed. The angel slides his own sweaty palms under Crowley’s and joins their hands the same way they have done for centuries; the same, but different.

It’s been such a long time, and it’s this they’ve been building to - not the sex, but the connection, the joining. Far beyond an agreement, this. 

Two vital, immortal beings such as them; all eyes are watching from the dark and the light, both sides curious to see what will happen next.


End file.
